


Frustration

by josephina_x



Series: Dimension 46’\-A [19]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: (crossover but it goes off the rails pretty quickly at the end there), (he shitposts even when he isn’t trying to shitpost), (he’s BILL CIPHER), (sorry about that?), (sort of?), (yes OF COURSE Bill knows how to shitpost), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Gen, One Year Later, Post-Series, Post-Weirdmageddon, See You Next Summer, WhatWouldTeslaDo, wwtd crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 15:42:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16746820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: Bill and Stanley hanging out in the Shack, in the afternoon, with nobody else around. Doin’ their thing. Just… being there and being themselves.(Leave them be. They aren’t hurting anybody.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fic: Frustration  
> Fandom: Gravity Falls  
> Pairing: n/a  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Spoilers: through the end of the series, and some of the books (Journal #3); also, up through Nov 18, 2018 of WWTD  
> Summary: Bill and Stanley hanging out in the Shack, in the afternoon, with nobody else around. Doin’ their thing. Just… being there and being themselves. 
> 
> (Leave them be. They aren’t hurting anybody.)  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not for profit.  
> AN: This is a bit more of a “crossover” with WWTD again, and you should go try and read and catch up on [Noia](https://fordanoia.tumblr.com)’s blog [What Would Tesla Do](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com) if you haven’t already! :)
> 
> Not really written in “real-time” exactly. Some things I wrote the day of, and some things… are still pending, as you can see.
> 
> This fic takes place the day after Chapter 6 of _Transdimensional Tumblr_ , the next afternoon. (Bill and Stanley are in the living room sofa-chair and at the kitchen table, respectively, all by themselves. The rest of the Pines are “out for the day.”)
> 
> Mainly written in terrible Bill POV again-and-still, but this time we also get some Ford POV in later, again! :)
> 
> (And yes, I will be posting summaries for these tumblr-type fics at some point in the near future. I know these are fairly hard to read. Apologies -- I’m still trying to think of a way to write them better, currently. ^_^;;;; --Suggestions would be very welcome, please and thank you!)

\---

It was the middle of the afternoon, and as far as Bill was concerned, it had been a good day so far. Shooting Star, Pine Tree, and that idiot Stanford had all gone out someplace that morning -- Bill didn’t really care where, as long as it wasn’t an “adventure” that he would also be required to go on (or at least obligated to vehemently object to because of the agreement he still had going with Stanley) to keep Shooting Star and Pine Tree from getting killed due to that idiot Stanford’s antics. Supposedly, they had all been planning on going “someplace in town somewhere” that Stanley had been fine with. Bill had had the house pretty much to himself all day so far, and it had been _glorious!_

...Well, he’d had the house all to himself except for Stanley, but that was fine. He could get along with Stanley. He didn’t bother Stanley, and Stanley didn’t bother him, and it all worked out just fine, at least as far as Bill was concerned.

He’d heard no complaints from Stanley on this, either.

Stanley was in the kitchen eating something he’d just cooked, and Bill was sitting in The Chair in the living room. Bill was pretty sure that Stanley had a crossword he was working on, none of the other Pines idiots were around to try and read what he was writing to give him a ration of _anything_ if he wrote to anyone on it again before that idiot Stanford was ‘okay with it’, and so Bill had his phone out, checking up on things.

Bill had been avoiding reading the idiot trio’s blog.

He’d turned off the “connection active” sound notification, in lieu of something more useful, instead. He’d set up a few things to let him know if the connection itself went unstable, since that’d be a better indicator than anything those idiots wrote -- or _didn’t write_ , because they were all too busy being caught up right in the middle of it, to write, and too selfish to warn anyone else -- about what was-and-wasn’t going on over there. Paying attention to the connection itself was a good-enough indicator of the stability of the dimension it was coming from, whether it was in the process of imploding, destabilizing, or otherwise collapsing...

He couldn’t ignore it forever, though. (It was like an itch under his skin at times. He didn’t like what was going on over there; it was stupid.)

So in still being in a reasonably good mood after his latest back-and-forth with Miz the previous day, Bill thought, ‘What the hell,’ because _she_ had been human, and he could write with _her_ just fine, couldn’t he? -- He _could!_ And DID! So why couldn’t he do it with those three idiots, HMMMMMM?

...Right, yes, _because they were idiots_ , and SHE was _SMART_ , but _Bill_ could be smart enough for ALL of them, right?

So he read through the backlog of the blog, and grumbled to himself over a few things in the process (too bad that that [Glasses didn’t get love spelled for being an idiot!](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/179294834837/teas-fine-by-the-way-fm)), but for the most part he was ambivalent about the rest of their visit with the Hand Witch. (...what little they’d actually written about it.)

After he got through the bulk of the idiocy-that-told-him-nothing, and the idiot brothers had apparently fought a bit and then left the Hand Witch’s cave…

...Bill ended up calling that Stanford an “Idiot!” out-loud for [not asking about the Zodiac](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180187970362/wait-did-i-ever-say-if-i-explicitly-asked-the), [not asking about that other Bill’s pawns](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180188078982/i-didnt-even-ask-about-his-pawns), [not immediately going back to ask](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180188090642/you-didnt-nor-did-you-ask-for-any-scrying-on) before heading back into town, and _then_ \-- adding insult to injury as far as Bill was concerned in having to read this dreck -- for [actually seeming to think that the use of the memory gun on himself was potentially a great idea](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180188453802/i-imagine-there-might-be-safer-ways-to-have-a) for recalling or bringing out information he was having trouble remembering.

He noted [the summarized entry on the prophecies](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180188611197/entry-60-we-found-the-palm-reader-who-told-us-a) only in passing. If it wasn’t on that Bill Cipher himself, or the [long list of enemies](<a%20href=) that these idiots [apparently had to worry about](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/179766428972/what-about-any-enemies-of-stan-from-out-of-town) killing them, he wasn’t all that interested. (And in his experience, half the time the “death” card just meant “great change” anyway[.](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/179765840942/death-can-be-a-symbol-of-change-as-well-so-it))

He felt confused and frustrated (and and more disquieted than he would ever admit) at the “new” “Zodiac” [apparently having _twelve_ (?!?!?) spaces for symbols](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180190109637/unfortunately-theres-not-an-exact-procedure-to) instead of ten.

But what really torqued Bill off when he read it was [this](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180191768307/hey-ford-could-i-ask-for-advice-awhile-ago-i):

\---  
_  
Anonymous asked:_

_hey ford, could i ask for advice? awhile ago i found out that i’ve been lied to for years by many people i trusted. it’s been truly devastating, and i know i need to reach out for help to get thru this, but i’m scared to talk to friends about it. i worry they’ll think less of me for being so gullible and not waking up sooner, or worse, they won’t even care to listen at all. how do i know who i can trust to tell? (if stan also has something to say, i’d really appreciate his input too. thank you)_

_I’m very sorry that happened to you._

_As far as I can tell, there is no definitive way to tell who you can trust. You can spend several months knowing someone and still turn out horribly wrong about them. I don’t know your situation exactly, but I know a situation like that can make one distrust their own judgement on other people moving forward._

_I would suggest trying smaller matters with your friends first, like telling them about forgetting your keys inside the house or missing your final exam due to accidentally spending an extra hour or two on an experiment that just turned up some interesting patterns. If they care about those small things, and listen to you without thinking less of you, then there’s a better chance you really can trust them._

_Sometimes you just have to try… and ultimately see what happens, for better or for worse._

_There’s some trustworthy people in the world, so statistically speaking... Eventually, it will be for the better, but it may be now and if you’ve known them for a while then it’s worth trying._

_Although, of course, it doesn’t hurt to try with a few small things first then proceed once you see what happens from that._

_-Stanford Pines_

_-p.s. I’ve asked Stanley to add on below._

_if you ask me what it comes down to, its your gut instincts. sometimes theres lil stuff you dont even really pick up but you just get a bad feeling about a person from it._

_or you dont_

_point is if your guts telling you something then chances are theres a reason for it. and yeah sometimes its just you, and sometimes you turn out wrong, but once you find one person then heres the thing.. you got two sets of instincts to help you both out when you need it!!_

_oh yeah but if someones acting really shady or always seems to want something specific when you two meet up like you buying em lunch or something then theyre probably full of it. best way to figure that out and switch the script on them and see if they try to split on you there_

_if someone ever thinks less of you just cause you could tell someone was lying to you though then they can shove it. only one person they should be thinking lesser of in that kind of situation and if they seriously think its you then youre better off without them_

_-stanley ‘puncher of unicorns’ pines_  
-ps if you know where those one friends live keep in mind theres nothing stopping you from going back and punching em. get your new friends to help to make it more fun!  
  
\---

...because that whole “explanation” completely offended Bill’s sight. It was just. plain. WRONG.

He could NOT let that stand!

“Anonymous or pseudoanonymous because no-one cares who you are just what you write, no allcaps because it’s too hard for humans to read, keep the ‘ha!’s and ‘idiots’ to a minimum because they take up too much space that could be used for other things,” Bill muttered to himself as he typed -- that list being the sum total of what Shooting Star had told him on internet posting that _hadn’t_ seemed completely contradictory and nonsensical to him.

(It was a bit unfortunate that that was all that Bill had gotten out of Mabel’s well-meaning explanations to-date.)

Bill wrote using the ‘ask box’, instead of trying to submit it all as one long ‘submit-a-post’, because despite the fact that Miz seemed to like long reblogs as much as he did, Shooting Star had been adamant that he _not_ send anyone any long posts because it was supposedly ‘bad etiquette’ to do that if the receiver didn’t ask you to do that. Which made no sense to Bill at all, and ‘because it’s too much to read all-at-once without responding in-between’ made even _less_ sense to Bill…

...except that almost all askers to the idiot-trio’s blog _were_ ‘askers’, and the only ‘posts’ seemed to be made by that Stanford, or by people who submitted pictures after they’d been asked to send them by that Stanford. So maybe this _was_ some stupid if-you’re-currently-a-human rule after all, even if it wasn’t a stupid Rule.

Bill started out with:

\---

_Congratulations, Pines. You just gave anyone who wants to take advantage of you a blueprint and a roadmap to the bare minimum they need to do to get you to trust them. Way to go! --That’s not how humans or demons or anyone works! No-one is a trustworthy person. You two can’t even trust yourselves, because even your own stupid physical bodies will betray you, give in and break down and collapse on you in pain and death at even the smallest of problems!_

\---

Bill sent that, then added (because yes, he was _that_ pissed off):

\---

_You want to share some real, working advice on “trust” with that “anonymous” instead of that bad information you just spouted off just now? Try this on for size: the only thing you can “trust” is that people will always work in their own “best” self-interest.__

\---

Then Bill frowned for a moment, thinking of Stanley and a few others, demons and otherwise.

\---

_You want to share some real, working advice on “trust” with that “anonymous” instead of that bad information you just spouted off? Try this on for size: the only thing you can “trust” is that people will always work in their own “best” self-interest. Unless they’re suicidal. Or think being completely irrational is fun and like getting killed. Ask around to figure out what they want, look into what they do to learn what they prioritize and how long they can concentrate on the prize._

\---

Bill hit the ‘ask’ button to send, then continued.

\---

_If you know that, you will know exactly how long you can expect them to do what you want them to do, after telling them you can give them something they want and showing them you can do it. You’ll also know when they will stop working with you and betray you, because they’ll always do it for something they want more. Every. Time. And you’ll know what that something more is._

\---

Bill sent that too, then thought for a moment, and ambivalently added:

\---

_And “trust” doesn’t have anything to do with “instinct”. I might “trust” someone to know something, or pull off making something for me, but I wouldn’t “trust” them not to break it later for some completely stupid and nonsensical reason! And just because they might be able to do that one thing for me doesn’t mean that they can do anything else, or that their “instincts” are something I can or should “trust”!_

\---

Bill nearly hit the character limit with that, grimaced, and hit the ‘ask’ key. He didn’t bother thinking about jumping over to a ‘post’ send instead; Shooting Star had been v-e-r-y clear about it being ‘bad etiquette’ to submit long posts to people unasked-for.

He didn’t let the broken-up sendings slow him down in the slightest.

\---

_The very “best” you could hope for there, with someone you think you can “trust”, is that they actually tell you what their “instincts” are telling them instead of lying to you about it or not telling you instead._

\---

...because his Henchmaniacs might not always be the most timely about it, but they _did_ tell Bill the things they thought he wanted to know about -- to be made aware of -- if they thought he might not have Seen it yet.

Bill huffed out a breath, hit the button to send, then closed out with:

\---

_There is no such thing as “total trust.” Idiots.__

\---

Bill paused for a moment, amending it to:

\---

_There is no such thing as “total trust" and thinking otherwise will get you killed faster than you can blink. Idiots._

\---

...then sent that, too.

Because that other Bill’s pawns were out burning down homes and _not_ being careful to try and keep those three alive. (Bill refused to think that that other Bill was maybe the one who had moved on to trying to kill them outright -- he didn’t want to think about that, and there was no evidence of that yet anyway. He wasn’t jumping to having to seriously consider a worst-case scenario of an other-Bill trying to kill his own Zodiac just yet.)

Also, that last ‘idiots’ at the end was totally deserved, in Bill’s opinion. And he’d kept it down to only the one!

He huffed out a “well, _obviously_ ,” to [the](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180191832572/please-do-keep-in-mind-that-it-may-or-may-not-be) [following](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180191873457/however-please-also-keep-in-mind-that-illegal):

\---

_Please, do keep in mind that it may or may not be illegal to punch people._

-

_However…. please, also keep in mind that Illegal does not automatically equate to immoral._

\---

Then wrote off another quick note in response [to](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180191906432/in-an-entirely-unrelated-note-stanley-has-just):

\---

_In an entirely unrelated note, Stanley has just informed me that he has very extensive tips on punching people that he will provide upon request._

\---

...because Bill wasn’t about to turn down more tips on “self-defense” and fighting in general from a Stanley Pines, especially when he might be able to get a few _without_ that idiot Stanford being able to know what he had learned, but...

\---

_If Stanley is giving out punching advice, make him draw diagrams! Or send pictures! “Make a fist like this” won’t make any sense otherwise!__

\---

Bill thought for a moment, remembering how punching lessons had gone so far in other aspects as well, then frowned, then added:

\---

_If Stanley is giving out punching advice, make him draw diagrams! Or send pictures! “Make a fist like this” won’t make any sense otherwise! Or any of that “stance” stuff.__

\---

Then frowned a bit more and added:

\---

_If Stanley is giving out punching advice, make him draw diagrams! Or send pictures! “Make a fist like this” won’t make any sense otherwise! Or any of that “stance” stuff. Or any of that “No, you need to move like this not this because” stuff.__

\---

Then realized that it was a bad idea to wait for others to write something asking, since that was far from the last blogpost, and added:

\---

_If Stanley is giving out punching advice, make him draw diagrams! Or send pictures! “Make a fist like this” won’t make any sense otherwise! Or any of that “stance” stuff. Or any of that “No, you need to move like this not this because” stuff. Also, I am requesting the very extensive tips on punching people!_

\---

Bill sent the ask.

Then he read [something else](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180192002547/also-apologies-but-we-did-stop-by-the-store-for-a) and was a little tripped up by it.

\---

_Also apologies, but we did stop by the store for a few bags of marshmallows._

\---

So Bill called out, “Stanley?”

“Yeah, kid?” he heard back.

“Why do marshmallows from the store require an apology?”

There was a pause.

“Uh, context, kid?”

Bill repeated the blogpost out loud for Stanley to hear.

There was another pause.

“Yeah, I got nothing,” Stanley told him quite frankly.

“...Must be a dimensional thing,” Bill muttered at that dimension’s customs.

He kept reading.

And after reading [another confusing posting](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180192326122/stanley-just-pulled-out-a-marshmallow-out-of-a), Bill asked of Stanley next: “Are stale marshmallows fatal?”

“Uh, no kid,” Bill heard Stanley chuckle out.

“Didn’t think so,” Bill commented. _Definitely_ a dimensional thing, then. Maybe that set of word-sounds had gotten swapped with something else? Like chocolate?

...That would make the s’mores-making they’d written about earlier make less sense, though. Wouldn’t it?

He grumbled his way through a few more things, thought ‘It’s about time!’ at that Stanford’s thought that he should ask the Hand Witch to scry after [Bill’s plans](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180192468187/its-definitely-progress-it-looks-like-the) because he apparently _did_ want to know them...

...and at that Stanford’s [apparent excitement](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180192576242/were-at-the-house-now-no-idea-on-the-structural) to try and get himself killed inside his own half-burned-down and collapsing house, Bill could not help but think that Stanford was treating it all like an “adventure”...

…and if he was, then Bill was _looking forward_ to seeing(/reading) what horrible things happened to that Glasses on _this_ adventure! HA!

Not least of which because he knew how most Stanfords defined “careful” -- HAHAHAHAHA!

He scrolled all the way back up and realized -- there was a message that hadn’t been there before, the last time he’d swapped back to this page from the ask page.

Bill frowned.

“Nnnnnn,” Bill let out, because did he really want to read about this while it was going on? He didn’t really feel like trying to talk with these idiots if all they were going to do was not appreciate what he wrote to them.

If they weren’t going to do him the common courtesy of reading and using what he wrote to them, when he was working to come up with useful plans and strategies to keep them all alive, then _why_ should he concern himself with whether or not he was being _timely_ about it?

“Kid, you doin’ all right over there?” Bill heard Stanley ask, and Bill just about groaned in annoyance.

“I’m fine,” Bill muttered, sinking lower in the cushioned sofa-chair.

“Kid,” Bill heard, and he let out a sigh this time. “Are you reading up on those ‘not taking sides’ folks again, right now?” Stanley asked him next, and Bill grimaced and turned in place to look over at Stanley.

“So what if I am?” he said.

“Kid, do you really want to be doing that?” Stanley said. When Bill didn’t respond right away, Stanley added, “You’ve been grumbling a lot--”

“ _Private loud grumbling_ ,” Bill told him, annoyed.

“--yeah, sure,” Stanley said. “But it stopped soundin’ ‘fine’ to me a couple minutes ago--”

“It’s fine,” Bill repeated.

“--and the _last_ time you were reading up on these people and tryin’ to talk to them, you spent about a week straight grumbling about them later. Didn’t you?” Stanley asked him.

“...Wasn’t just them,” Bill said, belligerently correcting him.

“The whole thing, then,” Stanley said.

“And the week-straight wasn’t the last time I read up on them,” Bill muttered out next, correcting him again, even though he shouldn’t need to, and knew he shouldn’t need to. Stanley knew that because of the talk they’d had about his phone in front of the rest of Stanley’s family, on the day of the ‘last’ time Bill had been reading up on them on all of it.

When Stanley gave him a long ‘you know what I mean’ look, Bill looked away from him and hunched his shoulders slightly. Because Bill did know what he meant, and...

He was stalling in giving Stanley an actual response, and Stanley knew it. And he knew Stanley knew it. And Stanley knew that he knew that Stanley knew it.

Bill blew out a breath.

“Do you want to be doing that?” Stanley asked him again.

“ _No_ ,” Bill admitted, “But I do a lot of things I don’t want to do, to make sure I get what I want,” he told Stanley. Then he added rhetorically: “Does it really matter if I do one more?”

“Yeah, kid,” Stanley told him soberly, looking at him straight-on. “The whole point of this,” and Stanley made an expansive gesture that included… them and the house? “Is so that you can get what you want without having to do a lot of things you don’t want do. _Right?_ ” Stanley pressed him.

“I…” Bill didn’t like where this was going, not at all. Every time it came up, it made him feel _uneasy_. Every. single. time.

“There anything you want to not be doing that you’re doing right now, kid?” Stanley asked him next -- _just like he always did_ when this came up, when he _brought this up_ \-- and Bill...

“--This conversation!” Bill spat out, then couldn’t stifle the grimace he made, because he knew what was coming next.

“You _want_ to not be having a conversation with me? Or you don’t _like_ this conversation?” came next, and Bill was not liking anything about this, _at all_.

Stanley stared him down, and Bill looked away first.

“...I don’t like this conversation,” Bill said, because he did _not_ want to risk Stanley never talking to him again. Because if he said he _wanted to not have a conversation with Stanley_...

That wasn’t what he wanted.

“Is there anything you want to not be doing that you’re doing right now,” Stanley asked of him again, and Bill’s mind couldn’t help but cycle through _keeping to the agreement, having to handle Stanford when he’s refusing to be a Sixer, talking with you about this all over again_...

But those were all things he didn’t like.

He couldn’t say he didn’t _want_ them.

Even ‘handling Stanford when he was refusing to be a Sixer’ at least implied that maybe things _could_ be handled. That maybe, just maybe, Stanford might change his mind and...

Bill shook himself. He didn’t want that idiot Stanford to change his mind. He didn’t _care_ if that idiot Stanford changed his mind. That was not a thing that he was looking for or caring about. Not anymore. Because _the deal was off_ now, and _he didn’t have to._

...He didn’t _want to not_ see that idiot Stanford change his mind, but that was a different thing.

“You want to not eat?” Stanley asked him next. “You want to not sleep? You want to not have a body again?”

Bill didn’t like it when Stanley got like this. But he also knew by now what would happen if he remained silent.

So he remained silent.

And Stanley moved on -- _like he always did when Bill remained silent on all of that_ \-- without getting a response from him either way.

“You _just said_ that needing to handle this two-sided war thing without taking sides, or whatever, just made the list of ‘want to not’s, kid,” Stanley continued on. “You changing your mind now and telling me it hasn’t?”

“I don’t want to be grumbling about it for another week straight,” Bill told him outright, “ _and I won’t_.” He took in a breath. “It’s fine--” he began, because he had it under control, or at the very least under surveillance with preparations in-hand, contingency measures to fall back on if things got truly serious and--

“Kid, it’s not fine, I’m pretty sure it’s a mental attack,” he was told, and Bill’s thoughts stopped short right there.

“What?” said Bill.

“You reading whatever-that-is,” Stanley told him, almost patiently. “It’s a kind of mental attack. Yeah?”

“It is _not_ ,” Bill protested, and he would know if it was! “I--”

“Kid, these folks ain’t tossing a physical punch your way,” he was told. “But you spent a week skittish and snappish and grouchy and upset-- _and distracted_ ,” Stanley stressed at the end as Bill was about to protest. “So don’t tell me that whatever you were reading off of that thing _didn’t_ have some kind of ‘mental impact’.” Stanley gave him a long look. “One that hit you hard enough to knock you off-balance, runnin’ around thinking about completely different things that you didn’t want to talk to me about, for a week.”

...The worst part was, Bill couldn’t quite contest that.

And it was slowly becoming clear to Bill that Stanley was going with his own odd definition and ‘line in the sand’ of what a ‘mental attack’ meant for all of this.

“It wasn’t what I _read_ , it was what I _thought of_ **after** \--” Bill began, trying to define and outline the problem a little better.

“Same thing,” Stanley said. “Would you have thought of it if you hadn’t?”

“... _Eventually_ ,” Bill said, then at the look Stanley gave him, admitted: “No. Not right then.”

“Kid,” Stanley said. “If this thing is stressing you out that much, you need to let it go.”

“And just watch while that dimension collapses, or _worse_ ,” Bill snarled out at him angrily.

“Ain’t your callout, kid,” Stanley told him.

“That’s not the _point!_ ” Bill said, because it wasn’t. Not really. Because _everything_ was going to be his callout, sooner or later. It was just a question of _when_. --So why _shouldn’t_ he start now, rather than later?

If he just kept putting it off _now_ , when he could finally maybe _do something_ about it… then he’d just keep putting it off _forever_. He’d be no better than that stupid lizard!

“Then what is?” Stanley asked him. “You’re not takin’ sides, and the place hasn’t collapsed _yet_ , right?”

“It’s _fine_ ,” Bill insisted. “I can handle this. I _have been_ handling this.” It was more frustrating and annoying to Bill that Stanley apparently thought that he _couldn’t_. He took in a breath. “Reading the things I read that **you’re** ‘ _worrying about_ ’,” Bill rolled his eyes, “Just made me think about some things I hadn’t really thought about before, on a way that I haven't had to think about things, for a really long time,” Bill told him, because he really _hadn’t_ ever thought about other him’s potentially being a problem for him before. Not to mention, the _last_ time he’d actually felt a need to worry about a problematic opponent, because they could potentially possibly have taken him on and actually killed him, he’d been less than a hundred-billion years old. “That’s all. It’s nothing. It’s fine. I _can_ handle it.”

“Kid,” Stanley began again. “You’re _not_ handling it. You’re stressed out already just talking to me about not-talking about it.”

“It’s fine.”

“And I haven’t heard you laugh at anything since you sat down,” Stanley pointed out. “Not even a ‘ha’ or nothin’.”

“ _It’s fine._ ”

“It’s not good for you,” Stanley began.

“Doing this is better than not doing this,” Bill told him flat-out, and at that, _finally_ , he saw Stanley pause.

“...You _sure_ about that, kid?” he was asked.

“Yes.”

Stanley considered him for a moment.

“You start gettin’ as bad as I saw you before, that last time,” Stanley warned him, “And I’m gonna tell you to stop. For today. --I don’t want you gettin’ yourself all worked up over something that’s ‘fine’. Understand?”

Bill felt exhausted by this already. “ _Fine_ ,” he told Stanley.

“Try settling down into your body a bit more, while you’re at it,” Stanley told him, as Stanley turned away from him to sit more properly at the table.

“Why,” Bill said, frowning at Stanley’s back, because he didn’t like doing that. He still didn’t really understand why Stanley thought it was important to get him used to what it felt like to let his stupid human-ish body _do_ things _for_ him. --He was already letting it handle the breathing and heartbeat stuff all on its own. ...Mostly. Did he really need to let go of more?

...Yes, it let him spend more of his thoughts on thinking about other things -- instead of body-control -- in general, but there was a trade-off there where sometimes he’d get caught up in stupid body things even _worse_ if he didn’t pay attention and control things _enough_...

...and not the _good_ kind of ‘worse’, either.

“Nobody else is around to be messing with you while you do it, and it’s good practice,” Stanley told him.

“Nn,” Bill complained.

“I keep tellin’ ya, kid,” Stanley told him over his shoulder. “You want to get better at fighting? You need to let your body do more things for ya.”

“...And?” Bill said suspiciously, because ‘nobody else had been around’ all morning, and this was the first that Stanley had brought this up.

“And,” Stanley said, “You doin’ that right now is gonna help me tell how you’re doing just by listening to you breathing.”

Bill blinked.

“...I don’t think I like that,” Bill said slowly.

“Then don’t do it,” Stanley told him simply.

...Bill ended up turning around, sliding back down into his seated position, and doing it anyway.

He’d show him. There was no way Stanley could tell that from where he was sitting, HA! Breathing wasn’t that loud anyway, either. Stanley was bluffing, and Bill was going to call his bluff!

Bill picked up his device and checked the interdimensional connection, then flicked over to the blog screen again, looking at the new but unexpected post that was still sitting there.

Bill wrote an ‘ask’ to the ‘adventure’ [and the new post](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180250682287/thankfully-stanley-had-a-rope-in-the-trunk-of-his):

\---

_Oh, good job! Why don’t you get some rope and a dummy to tie to the end of it and toss it into the house! And when it falls through the floor and F.M. gets tangled up in the rope and pulled into the hole after it, you can try and pull him out again! Adventure!!_

\---

...and sent it off. Because sarcasm was a thing that he knew how to do, and had been doing whenever the occasion called for it, _long_ before the first primates in this dimension had started banging two rocks together and calling it ‘ugh’, in fact.

It was also only maybe half-sarcasm, because that Glasses falling through the floor might be something to laugh at as HILAROUS!!!

...as long as the idiot didn’t manage to take either of the other two with him.

Then Bill frowned and blinked at the screen, because when he refreshed the page a bunch of new blogposts hit all at once. He hadn’t been talking to Stanley that long, had he? And Bill might’ve totally written it off...

...except that wasn’t the only problem that he saw. Because the last few new messages came out pure junk, and _that_ wasn’t and couldn’t be from just some timing issue...

“Lousy connection,” Bill complained, refreshing the page -- which pulled down a clean dataset to decode at his device, and cleared up the junk just that easily, at least. The stupid thing must have fritzed. ...Had that one black hole that he’d routed the signal around flared? He’d thought he’d picked a relatively stable one.

[He](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180250745182/quick-question-are-you-all-able-to-sent-multiple) [read](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180250925092/yes-yes-we-can):

\---

_Quick question. Are you all able to sent multiple messages simultaneously?_

-

_ANONYMOUS ASKED:  
Yes, yes we can._

_I see. I wasn’t sure about that._

\---

...which was timely enough.

He also saw:

\---

_ANONYMOUS ASKED:  
The very “best” you could hope for there, with someone you think you can “trust”, is that they actually tell you what their “instincts” are telling them instead of lying to you about it or not telling you instead._

_I don’t believe any of us need the particular lecture you sent._

\---

...and grimaced. Because that reply wasn’t...

Bill opened the ‘askbox’ in a different window and typed in, to clarify the sorely-lacking information given in the first message he saw:

\---

_Dimensions aren’t time synchronized until they are. And time is dead.__

\---

Then he paused and added:

\---

_Dimensions aren’t time synchronized until they are. And time is dead. --Good to know that you still get things eventually, even if the connection isn’t active!!_

\---

It didn’t escape Bill that he had been so annoyed with what they’d written earlier that he hadn’t even thought about the fact that they might not get those messages while the connection hadn’t been active.

Though, clearly, that Stanford had gotten his messages, and actually _read_ them this time.

Then he got to work on a response to the comment on his “lecture”:

\---

_I think you do need the lecture, if you’re still thinking that ‘telling small things’ to people and demons directly and waiting to see what they do is enough, thinking that is enough to tell if you can trust them. Because if you do, then you’re going to make the same mistake in not talking or thinking about the big things that will cause problems all over again!__

\---

Bill let out a huff. Because as far as he could tell, that was the problem he’d run into with his own idiot Stanford. He’d asked that idiot directly if there was anything that he thought would make him change his mind about wanting to open the portal, and that idiot Stanford had said ‘no’. He’d looked shocked, and even when Bill had tried to push him, tried to get him to think of things that he might not like, all that that Stanford had been able to come up with, that he’d thought of, had been that the portal could be dangerous if not constructed correctly. And then he’d said that he’d do it right, so that wouldn’t be a problem.

He hadn’t thought of Bill coming through it as being a problem. Not once.

He’d said multiple times before that he’d wanted Bill around more, longer, that he wished he could stay with him. That he wished Bill could _be there with him_ all the time.

It was part of the reason why Bill had started trying to teach that Stanford meditation in the first place, despite knowing that most male humans just couldn’t manage it properly. Because he’d thought that Stanford had wanted…

...not that Bill had wanted to offer that to him outright, when he was pretty sure that that Stanford would never even manage the basics. Not like…

Well. It was fine. It would have detracted from the portal work, anyway. And then Stanford had offered him that deal, and it hadn’t even been a problem anymore -- Bill had just been able to take over when that Stanford was asleep.

Clearly, this Stanford needed a second opinion on what he’d written. So Bill told him where to go to get one:

\---

_I think you do need the lecture, if you’re still thinking that ‘telling small things’ to people and demons directly and waiting to see what they do is enough, thinking that is enough to tell if you can trust them. Because if you do, then you’re going to make the same mistake in not talking or thinking about the big things that will cause problems all over again! You show my ‘lecture’ to Stanley, and I’ll just bet he won’t tell you that I’m wrong._

\---

Because Bill wasn’t wrong; he’d been telling them the truth. As far as he was concerned, he was doing that Bill a favor, too, telling that Stanford this. Because not being absolutely up-front about _all_ his plans -- and Plans!! -- once he’d gotten things past the point of no-return... had created a very bad situation with his own “Sixer” Stanford Pines. And trying to come at them sideways by getting a puppet-pawn to try and trick them into trusting that Bill-by-proxy next? Wouldn’t work. --That would only burn that other Bill in the long-run -- Bill had tried that with his Stanford multiple times during his dimensional travels, and every time things had just gotten worse, and worse, and worse, and _WORSE_ , until...

He was doing that Bill a _favor_.

He sent it off, then let out a huff as he refreshed again and… he swapped over to the connection-check program he had running, because this was getting absurd.

“What’s wrong?” he heard Stanley ask.

“Some kind of interference, maybe,” Bill told him, frowning as he switched back and forth between the raw data display of the connection status, the connection history, and the blogsite itself. He wasn’t entirely certain what was going on, but the inconsistency didn’t seem to be from the trio-of-idiots end. “...Or not,” he said darkly. Not unless something or someone was managing to mess with what he’d set up, anyway, 

Bill checked a few things, jumping between the connection information, the status of his ‘traps’, and the blogsite itself. He frowned slightly, because everything read ‘a-ok’, and none of the ‘traps’ he’d put in place had been set off. He flipped back over to the blogsite and continued to read up on the Stanford’s slow progress, then grimaced and refreshed twice in rapid succession because the connection seemed to ‘fritz’ again on his first refresh, only to resolve itself on the second.

Then Bill stopped what he was doing for a moment. Because this? This was not right.

“I need to go outside and--” Bill said, standing up abruptly and already moving for the doorway.

“Kid, hold up,” Stanley said, standing up and walking over to him, and Bill stopped in place. “What’s going on.”

“It’s not the other connection that’s a problem,” Bill told him, gesturing with his “smart”phone. “It’s _mine_.” He frowned down at the device, then looked up at Stanley. “I need to go outside and cast a few things to diagnose it. To figure out what’s going on.” Because he’d thought that he’d been careful, and put in enough traps and checks to catch about anything, but…

Clearly, he was going to have to add a few more. There weren’t many more places to _put_ them, though.

Really, the only places _left_ to put them were so close in that they were practically in _this_ dimension, and--

“Kid, sit down,” Stanley said, and… _was that supposed to be an **order**?_

Bill narrowed his eyes at Stanley, but a moment before he began to object, Stanley continued with:

“--Unless you’re sure it’s not a trap.”

Bill blinked.

“A trap?” Bill repeated.

“Yeah,” said Stanley. “If there’s somethin’ interfering with that connection of yours, is that, I dunno, _bait_ maybe?” Bill frowned thoughtfully as Stanley continued. “If somebody’s fishing down your line, are they gonna be able to tell that it’s _you_ from in _here?_ ”

“...No,” Bill said thoughtfully.

“Are they gonna be able to tell that it’s you if you step outside right now?”

“Probably not.”

Stanley gave him a long look. “Would they have a better chance of it if you’re outside, or inside, the Shack?”

“...Outside.”

“Uh huh,” said Stan. “Question time, kid: is going outside _right now_ really worth the risk of maybe getting fingered by one of those two ‘sides’ you don’t want to have bringing their fight here?”

Bill considered this.

...Bill sat down again and caught up on the trio’s progress.

(Oddly, there was no interference with his connection this time.)

He [read](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180251532067/were-tying-myself-and-fiddleford-at-each-end-of):

\---

_We’re tying myself and Fiddleford at each end of the rope as sort of dead weights with Stanley in the middle. If the ground falls out beneath any of us it shouldn’t be too bad._

\---

...and let out an annoyed sigh.

“Adventure, yay,” Bill said with zero enthusiasm, because _that_ didn’t look fun _at all_. With that setup going, it didn’t look like that Glasses would be getting into any trouble the other two couldn’t haul him out of that way, without issue.

Then Bill read [the next post](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180251610052/i-shouldnt-have-used-the-phrasing-of-dead) including the notes, and muttered, “Only if Stanley isn’t the one to fall through.”

“What?” he heard his Stanley say, and Bill flinched, realizing he’d muttered out loud loudly enough that Stanley had caught that.

“Hypothetical situation,” Bill said, feeling tense. “Not you.”

He could just about feel Stanley’s stare on his back.

“Not talking about you!” Bill repeated. “They don’t know about you! I’m just reading!”

He could just about feel Stanley’s stare on his back _intensify_.

Bill made a mental note to never say names out loud again if he could help it. --Not even think them, if he could.

Stanley didn’t say anything else. The staring sensation went away after awhile. Eventually.

Bill sunk down in the chair a bit and moved on to [the next post](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180251725632/what-if-the-ground-gives-out-under-all-yall)... and it left him feeling even more ambivalent about the situation in that other dimension:

\---

_ANONYMOUS ASKED:  
What if the ground gives out under all y'all?_

_Well, this rope’s got at least a good twenty or thirty feet and we’re sticking a good distance away from each other so if it does it should just be under one of us._

_Hopefully._

_//F.M._

\---

...not least of which because that Glasses had his hands on the device again.

When Bill read [what that Glasses had wrote of the living room](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180252394252/rooms-burnt-to-a-near-crispy-and-it-smells-awful), though, he just about flinched.

‘Noses are awful,’ he thought with no small disgust, and it wasn’t the first time that he’d thought that particular thought, either. The thought _underneath_ that thought, though… that was even worse.

In Bill’s experience, things ‘smelt’ (or felt) like someone burned to death in them when… someone _actually burned to death in them_.

He felt more than a bit suspicious [at](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180252451767/everything-in-the-safe-made-it-thankfully):

\---

_Everything in the safe made it, thankfully._

_Unicorn hair, my laser, and uh everything else in there._

_//F.M._

\---

“Everything else?” Bill muttered, [but](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180252512127/no-ones-actually-dead-right) [then](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180252599732/alright-yup-those-are-definitely-bones-fm) [read](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180252725287/was-the-skeleton-ford-had-a-real-skeleton) [on](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180252793367/jumped-the-gun-on-saying-it-smelt-like-death).

\---

_ANONYMOUS ASKED:  
no ones actually dead, right?_

_I’d like to say no, but I don’t got a clue and to tell you the truth as the man with a fortune all about being surrounded by death I’m not real eager on going into the room that smells like nothing but death and exploring._

_//F.M._

_#I can't imagine who would have been in here though. #Anonymous_

-

_Alright, yup. Those are definitely bones._

_//F.M._

_#Stanford F Pines is gonna be the death of me I swear #He's already looking_

-

_BUTCHSHAPESHIFTER ASKED:  
was the skeleton ford had a real skeleton?_

_To be honest with you, I forgot a bit that he had a skeleton model at all around here. Turns out that’s all it was, smell must have just been something else in here._

_//F.M._

_#May have overreacted a bit. #Just not the most comforting situation #butchshapeshifter_

-

_Jumped the gun on saying it smelt like death, sorry._

_//F.M._

\---

“Yeesh,” Bill said, sliding down even further in the sofa-chair and glaring at the screen of his “smart”phone. And then revised his earlier opinion to ‘really, _REALLY_ NOT liking Glasses!’

And ‘going into the room that smells like nothing but death and exploring’…?

“Stanley, what does ‘exploring’ smell like?” Bill asked, not really wanting to know, yet also _wanting to know_.

“Uh,” he heard Stanley say. “...Sweat, dirt, grass, and blood? I mean, usually.”

“Ew.” And now Bill had yet another reason to dislike noses. And maybe ‘exploring’.

Bill heard Stanley let out a chortle.

Bill shook his head and got back to his blogpost reading.

Then he [read about](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180252862737/f-as-much-as-having-a-badass-epitaph-might-be) that Glasses writing that he’d ‘nearly forgotten’ about the radioactive waste that _could_ ‘blow up in their faces’, and Bill…

...closed his eyes, and barely resisted the urge to start kicking the side of the armrest over and over again.

“...Kid,” he heard Stanley say in warning tones.

“Fine I’m fine everything is just _FINE_ ,” Bill gritted out, reopening his eyes and glaring at the screen again.

“Deep breaths, kid,” he heard, and Bill almost told Stanley off for it.

But he didn’t. He didn’t do that. Instead, he did the deep breaths anyway.

It didn’t really make anything _better_ , because Glasses was still Glasses and Glasses had still written what he’d written, but... Bill didn’t feel like he needed to kick and bite things immediately-right-then anymore, so… maybe that had been what Stanley had wanted.

Bill shook his head multiple times, then kept going.

Read about [‘something’](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180253048252/somethings-in-the-house-fm) being [‘in the house upstairs’](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180253079487/upstairs-fm) and...

...let out a scoffing sound at it being [‘just Scampy’](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180253221167/its-just-scampy-fm)...

...because _OF COURSE_ that Glasses was jumping at shadows again-and-still. First the living room, and now _this_. Bill shook his head at himself for letting himself treat anything that idiot posted as actually containing any useful information. Because since when did a Fiddleford _not_ panic when confronted with an ‘anomaly’? Let alone anything _else_ out of the ordinary?

And of course those idiots were all [delighted to see](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180253293772/the-critter-came-bounding-down-the-steps-once-we) the thing that was currently [eating their](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180253389862/they-were-eating-on-a-book-fm) [belongings](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180253485577/scampy-got-a-hold-of-some-kind-of-scrapbook-ford) and house.

…[and marshmallows](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180253651192/oh-no-are-the-photos-okay), which it was apparently being fed now.

“You’re training it to eat books, you idiots, giving it treats after doing that,” Bill muttered.

He refreshed the page, then read how the ‘scampfire’ had apparently ‘grown’ and typed, with a [frown](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180253736347/oh-my-gosh-scampy-love-that-lil-fella):

\---

_Grew. Or it isn’t the same one._

\---

...and sent it off.

He didn’t like that Glasses, but he also didn’t like the idea of any of them getting eaten by a ‘scampfire’ when that Bill might still need them alive to get out of his own ‘Nightmare Realm’.

Bill refreshed, read about the [‘second floor’](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180253835197/second-floor-down-look-like-it-was-barely-touched) (up or down?), and wrote:

\---

_No water? No water damage?_

\---

...because that didn’t sound right. It sounded… “Suspicious.”

And as much as Bill didn’t like that Glasses, that Glasses _was_ marginally better at explaining things in writing than that Stanford was, by a mental mile or more. So if he had to write to him... he’d write to him.

Bill didn’t quite grumble at [the](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180254167492/i-should-have-looked-at-these-earlier-fm):

\---

_I should have looked at these earlier._

_//F.M._

\---

...because what was he talking about[?](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180251253697/by-the-way-before-we-go-in-ill-be-giving) Context much? [The previous ask](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180254030207/i-know-yall-are-busy-right-now-but-do-you-plan) was about robot designs, but… why would he have needed to look at those earlier?

Bill didn’t get it. It sounded almost the same way as the “This wasn’t suppose to reach any of y'all.” did. What was he missing?

...Or was that Glasses just getting worked up over nothing again?

“Yeesh,” Bill said, shifting in place on top of the cushions of the chair that was not-quite-enclosing him where he sat. --It was probably just over nothing, again.

Stupid Glasses.

Then he refreshed and [read what that Glasses had to say](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180254511167/ive-been-designing-a-weaponized-version-of-my) about a ‘death robo-house’ design and...

Bill was REALLY starting to think that his Glasses was _absolutely_ better for having nearly melted his brain out of his ears from using that memory gun of his too much!

Bill had _pulled off_ one of those legs -- a third leg wouldn’t have helped with that! And adding “more metal”?! Instead of an actually-useful keeping-out-weirdness barrier?!?!

“ _Yeesh_ ,” Bill reiterated, yet again, practically groaning the word out.

“Kid, you hitting your limit?” he heard Stanley ask him.

“...Not yet,” Bill said, letting out a breath.

He sat up a little in place.

“You send anything to them today?” he heard Stanley ask him, as he refreshed the page and got nothing new.

“Yes,” Bill replied.

“They respond to any of it?” he was asked, and Bill hesitated.

“Yes,” Bill said, because he had gotten a response to what he’d first sent about trust.

“Yeah?” Stanley said, sounding interested. He looked interested, too, as he walked over and sat himself down on the top of the armrest Bill was pressing his feet against just then. “How’d they react to it?”

Bill frowned slightly.

“They get angry at it again?” Stanley asked, except it didn’t really sound like a question.

“No,” Bill said, because it hadn’t read that way to him.

“Upset?” Stanley asked next.

“No…” Bill said, because it hadn’t read that way to him, either.

“Did they like it?” was Stanley’s next question, and that had Bill looking up at him.

Stanley didn’t look particularly surprised. He also didn’t look like he thought the answer to his question was going to be anything other than… “No.”

Stanley sighed. “Well, at least that’s progress, maybe. Right, kid?” He scratched at his cheek, and when Bill didn’t respond right away, he said, “You ain’t sure, are you.” Bill frowned, and Stanley added, “You maybe want to let me know what they said?”

Bill put down the “smart”phone, and he thought about it. ...He couldn’t really see any downsides to it.

So he repeated what the response was: “They said, ‘I don’t believe any of us need the particular lecture you sent.’”

Stanley’s eyebrows went up.

“Kid.” Stanley scrubbed a hand across his face. “You sent them a _lecture?_ ”

“No!” Bill said. “I sent them six--”

And then Bill hesitated.

Because almost the first thing that Stanford had posted (the third thing, actually) once the connection had linked up from their end again, had been a query about [‘multiple messages simultaneously’.](https://whatwouldteslado.tumblr.com/post/180250745182/quick-question-are-you-all-able-to-sent-multiple)

Which meant that that Stanford had probably gotten all of his ‘asks’ at once.

And Shooting Star had said that sending long posts was bad for the stupid reason of it being too much to send to anybody all-at-once.

Was a lot of asks all-at-once the same as sending-a-long-post?

“...The last two things were short,” Bill muttered, feeling annoyed.

“Right,” said Stanley.

“They started it,” Bill said. “They wrote a long thing first!” At Stanley’s skeptical look, “They both did! My long-thing wasn’t any longer than _either_ of their long things!” Bill protested.

“ _Kid_ ,” Stanley said, and Bill shut his mouth at Stanley’s exasperated tone and grimaced, because Stanley always sounded like that before he asked a question like, “What did you say to them?”

“Wrote,” Bill corrected him belligerently, crossing his arms.

“Kid.”

Bill not-quite-squirmed in place where he sat.

“Ya don’t have to tell me,” Stanley began after a moment. “But it’ll be easier for me to tell ya what went wrong if you just straight-up tell me, instead of giving me some nothin’ ‘summary’ and making me _guess_ how it all sounded out.”

Bill twitched. And he twitched.

And he looked away from Stanley.

And he said--

\---


	2. Chapter 2

\---

“ _Congratulations_ \--” Bill just about sneered out, then stopped.

Ford clenched his teeth and his hand went for his gun reflexively. Bill might be on nearly the opposite end of town from them just now, but that didn’t mean he found it acceptable for that demon to talk to his brother like--

“You just gave ANYONE who wants to take advantage of you a BLUEPRINT and a ROADMAP to the BARE MINIMUM they need to do to get you to trust them,” Bill continued.

“What?” he heard Dipper say from where his grandnephew was standing next to him.

“Way to go!” Bill said next, with more sarcasm in his voice than Ford had ever heard out of _anyone_ , let alone-- “That’s not how humans or demons or _ANYONE_ works! NO-ONE is a trustworthy person.”

“What?” Ford heard Dipper whisper out next, but Ford couldn’t manage to tear his eyes away from the screen to look down at him, because Bill looked so--

“You two can’t even trust YOURSELVES, because even your own stupid physical bodies will BETRAY you, give in and BREAK down and COLLAPSE on you in pain and DEATH at even the _SMALLEST_ OF PROBLEMS!” Bill added, and the earlier anger in Bill’s voice had shifted halfway through to something like outright disgust as Bill threw his hands up in the air.

Ford was staring at the screen in disbelief.

So was Dipper next to him, he had no doubt. Mabel, he had no idea about, as she hadn’t spoken yet, but…

Ford stared at the monitor as he listened to Bill’s voice project out of the speaker system, as Bill said: “You want to share some REAL, _WORKING_ advice on ‘trust’ with that ‘anonymous’ instead of that BAD information _you just spouted off?_ TRY THIS ON FOR SIZE--” and Ford felt his eyes widen and his stomach drop as Bill took in a breath. “--The ONLY thing you can _TRUST_ ,” he heard Bill grind out, “Is that people will ALWAYS work in THEIR OWN _best_ SELF-interest.”

He felt a shudder run through him as he saw Bill look up at Stanley, as he saw the look Bill was giving his brother as he said, “Unless they’re SUICIDAL. Or think being COMPLETELY IRRATIONAL is _FUN_ and _like_ getting killed.”

And Ford didn’t breathe until Bill looked away from Stanley again.

“ASK AROUND to figure out WHAT THEY WANT, look into WHAT THEY DO to learn WHAT THEY PRIORITIZE and HOW LONG they can concentrate on the prize,” he heard Bill rattle off from the chair he was sitting in -- Stanley’s chair -- in the living room of the Shack. “If you know THAT, you will know _EXACTLY_ how long you can _expect_ them to do what you want them to do, after TELLING THEM you can give them something they want and SHOWING them you can do it.”

“Oh my god,” Ford heard Dipper say, as if something was dawning on him all of a sudden.

“...Is that how Bill thinks?” he heard Mabel say quietly, almost soberly, at his left.

“ _Oh my god_ ,” Ford heard Dipper repeat.

“Trust a demon to be soulless,” Ford heard Fiddleford mutter off and behind him, from the other end of the lab.

“ _He does that_ ,” Ford heard Dipper say, sounding more than a little panicked, though it shifted quickly to numb shock: “ _That_ is what he _does._ ”

Ford heard all of this, and Ford kept his mouth firmly and carefully shut.

“You’ll ALSO know when they will STOP working with you and betray you, because they’ll ALWAYS do it for SOMETHING THEY WANT _MORE_ ,” Ford heard Bill say, and Bill didn’t just sound angry this time. This time, he sounded coldly furious. “ _ **Every. Time.**_ ” Ford heard him intone, and Ford swallowed hard. “And you’ll know what that something more _**IS**_. And _trust_ doesn’t have anything to do with _INSTINCT_.”

Ford saw Stanley look like he was about to say something, except… he didn’t.

He wasn’t quite able to follow the low-voiced discussion that was going on between the niblings just then. He was too focused on the screen, and Bill’s words.

“I might _trust_ someone to KNOW something, or PULL OFF making something for me, but I wouldn’t _trust_ them NOT to break it later for some COMPLETELY STUPID AND NONSENSICAL reason!” Bill continued on, not looking at Stanley and clearly oblivious to Stan’s near-response. “And JUST BECAUSE they MIGHT be able to do that ONE THING for me DOESN’T mean that they can do ANYTHING ELSE, or that their _instincts_ are something I can or should _TRUST_!”

Stanley shifted in place slightly, and almost -- yet didn’t -- interject again.

“The very _BEST_ you could hope for there, with someone you THINK you can _trust_ , is that they ACTUALLY TELL YOU what their _instincts_ are telling them instead of LYING to you about it or NOT TELLING you instead.” Ford closed his eyes and passed a hand over his face. Because hearing _that_ from _**Bill**_ was so hypocritical and wrong… “There is NO SUCH THING as _total trust_ and thinking otherwise will get you KILLED faster than you can BLINK,” he heard Bill say, then end with: “ _Idiots._ ”

There was a long pause.

Ford reopened his eyes and stared at the monitor, in something like anticipation and dread. --Anticipation at what Stanley would say... and dread at how Bill would react to it.

He was expecting Stanley to tell Bill off. To tell him he was wrong. To tell him he was out of line, out of his mind, out of _something_ , though Ford didn’t know precisely _what_.

What he saw instead was Stanley, his own brother, sigh deeply.

What he heard his brother say instead was, “Well, you’re not wrong.”

“HA!” Bill said, straightening in place and looking pleased with himself -- if not outright… _vindicated?_... at Stan’s words. Bill grinned up at Stanley, and Ford watched this all happen from a monitor on a piped feed, rerouted to a lab in Fiddleford’s mansion from his house’s basement lab, captured from a nearly-invisible bug that Ford had placed in the Shack’s living room several weeks ago on the day that he’d called off his deal with Bill Cipher, one he’d made and placed and hidden there later in the day that very same afternoon.

And Ford felt cold as he watched Stan stand up slowly.

He watched as Stan moved towards Bill.

He watched as Stan lifted up Bill’s legs and moved them to the side.

He watched as Stan sat down in his chair, letting Bill’s legs fall back down into that ‘gated’ position across him...

...and he watched as Stan lifted up a hand to Bill’s head and mussed Bill’s hair up a bit.

Ford watched and listened, as Bill let out a sound that sounded something like an ‘ack!’ and batted at his hand.

“What-- you-- _why_.” Bill said flatly, looking confused and almost upset.

“Because kid,” he heard Stanley say, sounding tired as anything as he dropped his hand to the chair’s armrest behind Bill’s back, “You’re not _right_ , either.”

Ford let out a breath that he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“This is _really_ messed up,” Dipper said, and Ford silently agreed with him.

"Kid--" Stan began to... _explain to Bill?_ Ford wasn't quite sure what, because...

Mabel leaned forward and switched off the monitor and speakers.

“Mabel!” Dipper yelped out. “Why did you--” He reached forward to turn it back on, and Mabel grabbed up his hands and got in his way.

“We can just ask Grunkle Stan later, right?” she said. “We don’t need to listen to them right now.”

And as she said this, she was looking up at Ford with more than a little worry in her expression.

Dipper followed her gaze up to him.

It took Ford two tries to swallow, and another two tries to talk.

“...Yes,” he said eventually. “Let’s just content ourselves with asking Stan about it later.”

Ford knew he wasn’t going to be asking his brother about what Bill had said, however. He wasn’t going to ask about what Bill had meant, why he’d said what he’d said...

It wasn’t as though Ford was completely unfamiliar with the thought process, after all.

That was the way most denizens of the multiverse that he’d encountered had thought and acted.

It wasn’t a surprise, no. What was a surprise was that, in less than a handful of minutes, Bill had expounded upon and put into words that philosophy in its simplest form. Ford had never heard it related so directly, unabashedly, and clearly.

But it wasn’t _unfamiliar_ to him.

He really wished it was.

‘ _Well, you’re not wrong. ...You’re not right, either._ ’

Stan had surprised him.

Ford had never thought of his brother as being more optimistic than he, but... the _way_ Stan had said it...

‘ _You’re not right, either._ ’

‘ _You’re not right..._ ’

It wasn’t _Bill’s_ words that Ford needed any point of clarification on.

\---


End file.
